title: The shape of human navigation: how environmental geometry is used in maintenance of spatial orientation.
abstract: The role of environmental geometry in maintaining spatial orientation was measured in immersive virtual reality using a spatial updating task (requiring maintenance of orientation during locomotion) within rooms varying in rotational symmetry (the number of room orientations providing the same perspective). Spatial updating was equally good in trapezoidal, rectangular and square rooms (one-fold, two-fold and four-fold rotationally symmetric, respectively) but worse in a circular room (infinity-fold rotationally symmetric). This contrasts with reorientation performance, which was incrementally impaired by increasing rotational symmetry. Spatial updating performance in a shape-changing room (containing visible corners and flat surfaces, but changing its shape over time) was no better than performance in a circular room, indicating that superior spatial updating performance in angular environments was due to remembered room shape, rather than improved self-motion perception in the presence of visible corners and flat surfaces.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA. jonathan.kelly@vanderbilt.edu
authors.forename: Jonathan W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.forename: Timothy P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: McNamara
authors.forename: Bobby
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bodenheimer
authors.forename: Thomas H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Carr
authors.forename: John J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Rieser
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003196:Computer Graphics; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012399:Rotation; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult